Bubbles rise to the surface of the murky water…the water-lily pads bob up and down…somewhere something is moving, but nobody can quite see what it is…until a large blob, crowned with two water lily pads and a glob of slime that drips down a face obscured by a wetsuit hood, rises to the surface. [...more]

Bubbles rise to the surface of the murky water…the water-lily pads bob up and down…somewhere something is moving, but nobody can quite see what it is…until a large blob, crowned with two water lily pads and a glob of slime that drips down a face obscured by a wetsuit hood, rises to the surface.

Right…I’m back over here briefly. The new new book is now over 60,000 words, but there’s an interruption right now because page proofs arrived today and need to be worked on promptly. And I have a Vatta short story to make jell for an anthology with a closer deadline than the book. As often with […] [...more]

Right…I’m back over here briefly. The new new book is now over 60,000 words, but there’s an interruption right now because page proofs arrived today and need to be worked on promptly. And I have a Vatta short story to make jell for an anthology with a closer deadline than the book. As often with short stories, it doesn’t want to jell. It wants to either grow to a novel or shrink to an anecdote. Neither is acceptable.

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Elizabeth …that visa problems might still exist in the far future worlds science fiction writers write about? Surely future political entities will have better solutions than we have…won’t they? (Plot Daemon says “Bwah-ha-hah-hah-hah-haaaaa….”) And rules about who is really a citizen…and problems with missing paperwork…and what happens if you’re […] [...more]

…that visa problems might still exist in the far future worlds science fiction writers write about? Surely future political entities will have better solutions than we have…won’t they? (Plot Daemon says “Bwah-ha-hah-hah-hah-haaaaa….”) And rules about who is really a citizen…and problems with missing paperwork…and what happens if you’re deported from your own planet and you haven’t ever done anything wrong there?

NewBook progresses, still generating plot and complications in a healthy way.

Addendum July 26 Comment posted by Elizabeth:

Lordy, lordy, this is being fun. No, the characters aren’t having fun. There’s frustration on all sides. Officialdom is annoyed with people who don’t tick all the boxes, fill in all the blanks, sign on dotted lines, get things notarized, and then stand patiently in line for hours… (yes, I was caught in a bureaucratic paper-pushers’ delight a couple of weeks ago, and got to watch other people have a worse time than I did. Then watch a nearby city’s evening news report on the “new mega-center” that the online stuff kept directing me to because it was “faster.” It wasn’t faster; it was jammed and people who weren’t there at 5 am weren’t going to get whatever it was they needed done. Thank you SO much, Texas legislature.) Anyway.

For the writer, the chance to make use of such experiences is one of the things that makes them bearable. The other thing is knitting. Knitting is perfect when you have to wait…and wait…and wait…and wait.

People who say they aren’t patient enough to knit sit or stand in line jittering and fussing, and miserable, while I am adding rows to a sock. It becomes a game. How many stitches or rows can I do before the line moves again? How many while waiting for my number to be called? And it amuses others who are waiting, at least some of them. At least one person in any room is either a knitter, or a relative of someone who knits/knitted or crochets/crocheted. Someone will ask what it is, or if the yarn is wool or cotton, or comment on the colors. And often we can get a lively discussion going that’s not about how slow the line is.

In the “where are we now?” category, the book is, as of today, at 16,000 words (still short fiction of the novelette or novella type) and 83 manuscript pages. The good news is that story is flowing. It’s going nonlinear in the “threaded plot” sense, as Aunt Grace, Rector of Defense, has just gotten home […] [...more]

In the “where are we now?” category, the book is, as of today, at 16,000 words (still short fiction of the novelette or novella type) and 83 manuscript pages. The good news is that story is flowing. It’s going nonlinear in the “threaded plot” sense, as Aunt Grace, Rector of Defense, has just gotten home to find her place booby-trapped, while Ky, at dinner in another location, is about to be unpleasantly interrupted by the persons who rang the doorbell there, and a character from Cold Welcome has taken on a new identity. Read the rest of this entry »

As light revealed the land around them, Oktar knew they were north of the town, riding north, winterwards as the horsefolk said, and the reason he hadn’t been able to feel the rein was that he had none–his grandfather held Oktar’s horse’s rein as well as his own in his one good hand. The horses […] [...more]

As light revealed the land around them, Oktar knew they were north of the town, riding north, winterwards as the horsefolk said, and the reason he hadn’t been able to feel the rein was that he had none–his grandfather held Oktar’s horse’s rein as well as his own in his one good hand. The horses moved at a brisk walk, ears forward, alongside a stone wall with sheep on the other side of it. Oktar turned to look behind. Nothing of the town showed but a blur of smoke in the distance. Read the rest of this entry »

March and most of April were eaten up by illness, aftermath of illness, another illness, and attempting to get the rewrites done on Cold Welcome and catch up on things left undone while sick. Including church music. I am well again (fingers crossed) though far, far behind in physical fitness, housekeeping, and progress on the […] [...more]

March and most of April were eaten up by illness, aftermath of illness, another illness, and attempting to get the rewrites done on Cold Welcome and catch up on things left undone while sick. Including church music. I am well again (fingers crossed) though far, far behind in physical fitness, housekeeping, and progress on the book after Cold Welcome. Energy level is slowly coming back. The rewrite has been delivered to Editor (April 15), and her remaining comments, if any, will be dealt with in the copy edits.

(Mirrored from Universes blog) Working on the rewrite of Cold Welcome. On Monday, I sent Editor the latest draft of the new ending, and in light of Editor’s comments worked on it some more, then started in on front-to-back run (actually crawl!) through combining her original letter, the marked up manuscript line edits, and the […] [...more]

(Mirrored from Universes blog)

Working on the rewrite of Cold Welcome. On Monday, I sent Editor the latest draft of the new ending, and in light of Editor’s comments worked on it some more, then started in on front-to-back run (actually crawl!) through combining her original letter, the marked up manuscript line edits, and the changes that would be required by the new ending. This also involved having two versions of the first chapters on the monitor at once, the letter, a stack of reference printouts, and the marked ms beside me on the desk. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d been planning to mirror some of the Universes posts over here, when they were of general interest (or what I conceive as general interest) but someone mentioned they’d hate to go to the next place and find the same thing. How about this: any post that I mirror somewhere else will be labeled on […] [...more]

I’d been planning to mirror some of the Universes posts over here, when they were of general interest (or what I conceive as general interest) but someone mentioned they’d hate to go to the next place and find the same thing.

How about this: any post that I mirror somewhere else will be labeled on both sides of the mirror: “Mirrored at [whichever].” Then wherever you hit it first, you’ll know where else it is and not to bother. Would that solve the problem? You’d miss any site-specific conversation, but you wouldn’t be bored by seeing something in two places.

To demonstrate how that would work, I will mirror the post about C.J. Cherryh being named to the SFWA Grandmaster list over here, with its notice, and add the notice at the other end as well. Or rather, I’ll do that after I eat something. (Sorry–gluttony before work, at this time of day.) And maybe someone will have said NO, PLEASE NO or something to convince me it’s a bad idea.

I had hoped to have the new site & blog up by the end of last year. Then by the end of January. Then by the first week in February. Various things have intervened–and you don’t need to know all the details–but I’m still sick and still haven’t gotten the site up and open for […] [...more]

I had hoped to have the new site & blog up by the end of last year. Then by the end of January. Then by the first week in February.

Various things have intervened–and you don’t need to know all the details–but I’m still sick and still haven’t gotten the site up and open for comment. It’s all done but turning on the lights and ripping the “under construction” sign off the front, pretty much, but the remaining bit is being sticky.

Don’t have Editor’s letter yet, either, though my agent tells me it’ll be here very soon. Meanwhile writing on the new new book is going very slowly, as I have to know what changes Editor wants in Cold Welcome before going forward into #2.